Ola Luis,

Yes, there are a few missing pieces. In addition to the Surveyor series, the Ranger spacecraft returned important information to help us learn about the Moon in preparation for the crewed missions. You have also overlooked the two-person Gemini orbital missions, which developed the techniques of rendezvous and docking two spacecraft, spacewalks, spacecraft control, and the technology and human factors knowledge for longer missions. You might want to mention the first woman to fly in space, Valentina Tereshkova. (I think she was in Vostok 6, but I'm not sure.) The Soviets also returned samples of lunar material to Earth with an automated probe in the same time period as the U.S. Apollo landings. You may also want to include the loss of the three American astronauts in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire. They were Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. The flight of  the chimpanzee named Ham was probably more significant than those of Able and Baker. I would encourage you to try to convey the attitudes of excitement, adventure, and optimism about the future that were so much a part of the space program in those days. Good luck with your show!

Chuck Stout

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